Combat Wombat Project

[Makotosun]

At Hodaka Days 2017, my son and I arrived with 2 bikes and returned with most of 5. Long story, but it will make sense in my delusional rationalization process. We started with a 71 100B+ and a 68 Ace 100. Both great runners but of course never enough.

My friend met us there with two bikes I was interested in. A barn find Super Rat (That build is in process as well and will continue to be documented on the site here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3018

We also brought home a titled Ace 90 Frame which will be used to make his 68 a street licensable bike so he will be able to ride in the TT when he gets his license!

We had not planned on it (or at least I had not!) but Bruce happened to have a bit ratty of a Combat Wombat. My son has the same problem I do in that he can see a finished bike when holding only a rusty swing arm pivot bolt, so the dealmaking was on. Bruce made us a deal we couldn't walk away from and the bike followed us over to our tent.

A happier 14 year old one has never seen!

While sitting at our camp, a few other folks walked by, noting the problems, etc of the project. Steve and Jon Vasilauskas, Hodaka friends from Chehalis area (close to us) had helped us put his other Ace 100 motor together. Good people. Steve made us a deal of the century on some Super Combat wheels complete to make the bike that much closer to being complete! We consummated that deal upon our return to Western Washington.

Arriving home started the project in earnest. The formerly black painted air box turned out to be quite salvageable with some elbow grease and 14 year old enthusiasm.

and our project started to get some personality.

[Makotosun]

Arriving back home, we stripped the bike down to the frame and began inventory and refinishing. The nice thing about an MX bike is the teardown process is very quick. Only 3 wires to unplug, and not a lot else!

A coat of semigloss (it is military issue!) paint for the frame, carefully keeping the VIN plate original.

[Makotosun]

We repacked and greased the triple tree with waterproof wheel bearing grease. Not a lot of wear goes on back and forth, but it carries a lot of impact.

Rebuilt forks (seals and dust covers and fresh oil after cleaning) placed back in the triples awaiting wheels. You can see how nice that old air cleaner looks right at home! The rear shocks were in good shape, just needed a little polishing! Really lucky there.

And as promised, we installed those nice aluminum Super Combat wheels. These were complete and in very nice condition. The tires will be replaced, but for now they work fine until we get the bike under its own power!

[Makotosun]

Time to slide the motor back in until we can get it tested.

Once it's there, we played with the points and wiring, and Lo and Behold we have good spark! I wonder . . .

A heavy coat of fogging oil in the cylinder and a small shot of start fluid and . . .


href="http://youtu.be/jQGrFwXw9SY">youtu.be/jQGrFwXw9SY

Seriously. It fired on the first kick, and gave enough of an indication that we should put it together and see if the transmission is good. Moving ahead.

The original carb was garbage, so a Yamaha/Mikuni VM26 from a Yamaha DT250 was called into service for testing.

A fresh rubber intake was also procured so the whole intake is mostly complete at this point.

[Makotosun]

So on a bike like this, there are numerous parts that kind of make the bike. For a Combat, you really need a through-frame pipe. It did not come with one. The original wheels were junk and not even both Hodaka, but as discussed above, the Hodaka family (Jon & Steve) came through. I can't help but think that Alex having been (I think) the youngest rider to complete the Bad Rock Trail ride, albeit on a vintage Honda Z50 (air cooled, drum brakes and twin shocks!) may have helped the deals along.

This was taken at the first Bad Rock rest stop - vintage filter applied. I believe he was either 6 or 7 in that photo.

I had my eyes on a multi parts bike package that would sew up deal up if it came through. A few weeks later, my son, his buddy and I made a trip to Tacoma in response to an overpriced Parts Lot craigslist ad. The key parts we needed - a pipe and a seat - were in the lot, and it looked like enough other stuff to hopefully make those parts nearly free. Note that an NOS pipe is about $1,000 and used go for between $200-500.

We arrived in a nice neighborhood, and the house I am sure was keeping the property values in check had a pile of Hodaka stuff out front when we arrived. Looking through the piles, trying to look disinterested, we mentally did some figures. A deal was struck, and we loaded 3 roller frames, about 10 pipes, 10 assorted tanks, 5 bins of misc parts and a few more things I am sure I am forgetting.

The rollers consisted of a mostly complete Wombat, a Combat Wombat with decent wheels, and a Dirt Squirt in fairly poor condition. Still inventorying the stuff. But the needed seat and a repairable pipe were in the mix, so back to our story.

[Makotosun]

There were actually two combat pipes in the mix. An early Flame Thrower version in need of some serious TLC and a later straight-tipped version which was better but the head pipe was still pretty poorly repaired.

In addition, the exhaust flange had actually been welded directly to the pipe! And not nicely either. So what to do.

I discovered a neat little business in Scappoose, Oregon called Columbia River Mandrel Bends (http://www.mandrelbends.com/) which seemed to be the ticket. We took our best pipe along and made the 20 minute drive along the Columbia to visit with them. A nice lady who was seriously into sand toys was happy to help, and even had her shop guy cut and flare the bits we needed.

I got two of them as we will need to do the same with the Flame Thrower. Walked out the door for about $35!

[Makotosun]

So the next job was to fit the bend to the pipe. This needs to be done on the bike, as you want the rear mounts to be in place and aligned so that when it is welded together, it fits like it is supposed to. Sounds a lot easier than it turned out to be.

Once you have the layout right, you keep trimming the pipes where they meet so the head pipe goes into the chamber but only enough to give a decent structural weld, then tack everything together and find a better welder than me to do a final seal of the pipe. That we did, and added another $30 to the tab. Nice folks at the welding shop. Good to be from a small town . . .

[Makotosun]

The cool thing about this whole deal is the parts lot gave us a set of fairly decent stainless fenders, a very nice seat, a usable tank, and of course a solution to the pipe problem. The bike had the inner part of the rear mount and another one of the hodaka faithful came to the rescue, sending us the outer part of the clamp which he had as a spare.

Putting all the bits and pieces together, we ended up with a rolling, running rider. But that, of course is not the end of the story.

Backtracking a bit, after we got the bike home originally, we discovered it wasn't just a Combat Wombat, which is cool by itself. But it was a very early version - a first month production bike to be exact - so getting the flame thrower pipe in the mix will help us put it back to full stock some day.

But for now it was to be ridden. To be my 14 year old's primary ride. His dream bike.


href="http://youtu.be/XJGtSXevv1M">youtu.be/XJGtSXevv1M

Unfortunately, a few weeks after that video clip was done, the bike stopped running. We are not exactly sure the precipitating problem, but it had some top end damage, including a toasted small end bearing, so apart it came. The motor is now about to be split apart to get all new bearings, seals and a general inspection, and a new bore. More on that in the next post.

[Makotosun]

So the top end was already 4th over, and my initial search didn't yield any larger pistons, so I began a search for another cylinder. Apparently when you have a one year only bike, parts become more valuable . . .

Dale Dvorak turned me on to the fact that Paul Stannard apparently thought ahead about my needs and actually stocks them up to 8th over. Wow.

This one was really, really worn and needed to go to 6th to clean up correctly. Today I just picked up the top end from my machinist fellow, freshly bored, cleaned, the outside and the head bead blasted and the piston rings fitted and sized.

And now I think we are up to date on the progress on the bike. The bottom end will come down to the crank over the next week or two as time permits, to be reassembled with all new bearings, seals, and the like. The chassis will get some detail work as well, since the first time, the excitement of riding the old girl kind of got him rushed.

I'll post as we move forward to completion.

Thanks for following along!

[bobwhitman]

Great story, Gary - well told!
Bob

[relic]

This build is awesome on so many levels. The fact that your son is the driving force is super. He can shoulder some of the blame for a garage full of Hodaka bits, LOL.
Seriously, I love seeing you guys with younger relatives enthused about having fun with small bikes.
Working and building and riding. Can't beat that.

Ken

[hodakamax]

Wow! What a project(s). Keep up the good work and encouraging our successors. All good!

Max

[G-Race]

Hey there, great project and it looks awesome. I'm new to the Hodaka group and just started gathering parts for a later model Combat. If and when you get your flame thrower pipe repaired and installed I'm in need of and would be very interested in the late model pipe. Thanks for a great post, Iv been inspired.

Tim

[matt glascock]

Hey Gary, sweet ride! I really love the Combat Wombat. I had a question. How did you get the black paint off the air box lid without roaching the olive drab paint and decals? I have one that someone painted orange but I can see the outline of the decals so I think it was just over sprayed.

[Makotosun]

My son did it. He carefully used a rag and some Goof off. Took him about an hour and a half.

[matt glascock]

That stuff is magic. I wonder why it stopped short of the factory paint? I'll give it a try. Thanks Gary!

[Makotosun]

My suspicion is the rattle can Black was not very rrhick or of decent quality. It was a flat paint as well, which would make the surface a bit More porous.

[matt glascock]

Good, I'm guessing the blaze orange in this air box cover is of the same vintage/quality. I'm going for it tonight. Even if it doesn't work, the repop decal sets have worked well rof me on two other occasions. Thanks Gary!

[Makotosun]

As the holidays have passed, the stolen Ace has been recovered, and HD18 is approaching, time to get back on this project!

Since the 6th over piston requires some minor case clearancing, and my garage is a huge mess, the whole motor went for a ride to my friendly neighborhood vintage bike mechanic for some TLC.

Lots of reasons, but worth the minimal price he charged me!

His approach for the clearance work was to mount the cylinder on the case halves, then use his boring bar to symmetrically open up the case for the big slug. Elegant solution.

Sneak preview!

The bottom end fully freshened up, new piston and bore, bead blasted center cases, fresh points and timed ready to install! His old case had a broken rear shifter case stud, so we subbed in a nice one from the parts stash bins, keeping the proper early numbered right case half for the first month build frame!

Making baby steps, but good progress.

An aside - I took the parts tub along so my guy could scavenge any other parts for the Combat needed. In the process, we determined there was a virtually complete standard Wombat bottom end in the tub! I will next be getting a bottom end kit from Terry, a shin or two he needed for the Combat project, one of the several 125 cylinders bored and we will be well on the way to a running Wombat out of the parts but! Woo Woo!

[Makotosun]

We are making a bit of progress today.

The motor is like a crown jewel in the mil-spec Combat frame. Clean enough to eat off of, but all business!

The rain is still happening so we are not going as fast as we’d like, but I did pull out the Harbor Freight buffing wheel to clean up the fenders a bit.

Before & After:

More soon!

[Makotosun]

Got the motor back in and vitals hooked up. Seems like it is working well!


href="http://youtu.be/ymjHirv7TRs">youtu.be/ymjHirv7TRs

[racerclam]

Looking good Gary

Rich

[Makotosun]

Thanks, Rich! We went back to the proper stock 28mm Mikuni. We had been running a Yamaha DT250 which was a direct bolt up, but this one seems to be a tad bit smoother. We’ll see how it rides.

Gotta finish up some work on the shifter Case and a couple of little loose ends and we should be back riding this one!

[matt glascock]

Beautiful bike Gary. The Combat Wombat in stock trim has such a nice, broad, and useful power band mated to effective gearing that they are really versatile enough for MX, hare scrambles, enduro, and just-for-fun trailing. I just know you'll love it and am really looking forward to your report after you get it heat cycled and dialed in so you can really get on it. Great work!!

Best,

Matt

[hodakamax]

You're bringing back memories here Gary. I uncrated the first one to arrive at the shop decades ago and rode it a zillion miles. Yep, that's one of them alright, and lookin' good for sure!

Maxie